“Four or five.”

“I’ll bet he chose you to approach because he knew you liked science fiction,” said Erin.

“Most scientists like science fiction,” said Hansen.

“Yes. But not all. I wonder if he thinks science fiction fans will be more receptive to the alien angle?”

Both men agreed that this was possible, although they seemed to think it unlikely, and the discussion moved on to other subjects, as the three of them continued to try to get to know one another prior to their scheduled call with Drake. Before they knew it, it was time, and Burghardt led them to his home office.

The room had built-in desks, cabinetry, and bookshelves throughout, although once again the cabinets and bookshelves were mostly empty. An expensive computer and several large monitors looked lonely on the desk.

Burghardt manipulated the computer and soon had its audio and video output thrown up on a forty-inch monitor, the room’s largest. Hansen approved. When Skyping with an alien, Erin might as well get the full effect.

Burghardt positioned himself in front of the camera first and warned Drake that he wouldn’t immediately recognize his colleagues. When they did appear, Drake looked them up and down but didn’t comment on their new looks. “Congratulations on making it to Colorado. Are you both okay?”

Erin caught Hansen’s eye and gave him a quick nod. She had recognized the voice and odd accent of the man she had known as Hugh Raborn immediately.

“We’re fine,” said Hansen. “Although I was hoping you would make it here before we did.”

“Far less urgency for me to get there,” said Drake, who appeared the way Hansen had described: just about average in every way. “You two are the rate-limiting step. With any luck I’ll be able to make it there before too long. But Steve Fuller is expending considerable resources to find me. And you two have an advantage over me while on the run. You don’t make other humans uncomfortable. So you can interact with them for extended periods if you have to, and maybe even enlist their help. I can’t.”

“Kyle told me the sight of you might give me the willies,” said Erin by way of greeting. “And he was right. Even on the video.”

“I know,” replied Drake. He unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the alien nature of his physique, as he had done with Hansen and Burghardt. As usual, his tendrils whipped through the air with a grace that couldn’t be faked. Hansen glanced over at Erin. She was hypnotized, and wore a crooked smile on her face.

“I’m sorry I had to resort to the Hugh Raborn deception with you, Erin,” said the alien. “But now you see the necessity.”

“Why didn’t you give me this demonstration from the beginning?” asked Erin. “Like you did with these two?”

“I had to interact with them far more extensively on this project than with you. Your activities were largely autonomous.” He paused. “So Max, can I assume the Seq-Magic Ultra is already in high gear, synthesizing our construct?”

“No,” said Erin, sparing the short molecular biologist from having to be the bearer of bad news. “I haven’t given him the combination yet.”

“Why not?” demanded Drake. “Surely by this point Kyle has explained the importance of this project? The overarching goals?”

Erin nodded. “He has. But I wanted to talk to you first. Hear your voice. See your, ah … tendrils.”

“Okay. You’ve done that. Now let’s end this call so you can tell Max what he needs to know without further delay.”

“I need him to sequence the construct with me looking over his shoulder first.”

“What?” thundered Drake. Hansen had never seen him react this way to anything before. The stress of the last few days must be driving him near the edge.

“It’s only a few hours’ further delay, if that. And I’ll be honest, I now have zero doubt you’re an alien. And your motives are probably pure. But then again, you are an alien. And the Hugh Raborn in you knows that even human motives can sometimes be impossible for other humans to fathom. So just because your expressed motives walk like a duck, and quack like a duck…”

“And if Fuller catches up to you because of your few hours’ delay?” said Drake.

“I have to take that chance. The longer we argue about it, the longer the delay,” she pointed out.

Drake glared at Erin Palmer for a few additional seconds, but she retained a look of resolve, and he reached a decision quickly. “Max,” he said. “Sequence the construct in front of her. Make it quick. Get us all back on the line the moment she’s satisfied.”

“Will do,” said Burghardt, ending the connection.

37

ONE OF TWO palatial master bedrooms in the mansion had been converted into a biotech lab, which Erin noted was as fully equipped as any she had ever seen. A fume hood sat over a table at one end of the room. Lined up against the wall at the other end were several stainless-steel refrigerators and freezers, each set to a different degree of coldness, all the way down to negative seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit. Glass cabinets above a long lab bench were stuffed with chemicals, flasks, beakers, and petri dishes, and a large glass incubator sat catty-corner to the refrigeration units. Inside the incubator, liquid-filled two-liter flasks were growing huge numbers of E. coli bacteria, the workhorse of biotech, at their preferred growth temperature of ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.

In the center of the room stood a stainless-steel device about the size of a large refrigerator, with a touch-screen monitor attached. Seq-Magic Ultra was emblazoned in blue, stylized letters across its front. The device contained a variety of cabinets that slid open at the touch of an icon to reveal slots for key reagents, which its internal robotics would use to build long stretches of DNA, one nucleotide letter at a time. The series of chemical reactions inside the state-of-the-art device occurred at breathtaking speeds, but couldn’t come close to matching the speed of the simple E. coli bacterium, which could replicate an entire genome of over four million bases in less than thirty minutes.

Burghardt slid a pair of disposable latex gloves onto his hands, and removed a box of inch-long, sealed plastic tubes from a freezer rack. He selected a vial and showed Erin the tiny, carefully written label on the side, which read Cure Construct—Final, along with a date. Hansen read the label as well, although he was determined to be a silent observer during this process.

Burghardt dialed a micropipetter to draw up a single microliter from the vial, popped on a sterile plastic tip, and removed an almost imaginary amount of fluid. Ten minutes and several ministrations later, the Seq-Magic Ultra was digesting the sequence of the construct with superhuman speed, and strings of A’s, G’s, C’s, and T’s were streaming across the monitor faster than human eyes could follow, each letter appearing in a different color.

Within thirty minutes the sequence had been completed, over six thousand base pairs long, and checked for accuracy twice.

“Can I assume the sequence can be directly uploaded to an online site?” said Erin.

“Of course,” replied Burghardt. “This device is wirelessly connected to the Internet,” he added, a statement Hansen thought was unnecessary. What device wasn’t connected wirelessly to the Internet these days?

“Good,” said Erin. “Go to GeneRepository-dot-com,” she instructed.

“Never heard of it,” said Burghardt.

Erin shrugged. “So what?”

“So, while there isn’t a single database that contains all known gene sequences, CodeMaestro comes the closest.”

“GeneRepository has the complete sequences of more pathogens,” said Erin. “And better software.”

Burghardt stared at Erin in contempt. “How do you know anything about any of these databases?” he said. “When do you do molecular biology?”